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VOL. 37.---No. 12.]

LONDON, SATURDAY, Oct. 7, 1820.

A LETTER

ΤΟ

MR. BROUGHAM,

ON

His neglect of Duty, with regard to the Defence of her Majesty, the Queen.

London, Oct. 5, 1820.

SIR, Public expectation was raised to the highest pitch at the moment whenyou entered the House of Lords, on Tuesday last. I cannot say that I participated fully in this expectation; for I have never been able to get rid of the impression made on my mind by the mysterious silence at St. Omers, by your transactions of 1819 and of April 1820; by the speech threatening to thwart the Queen; by the Protocol-negociation; and especially by the Queen's answers to the addresses from Preston and Nottingham, which manifestly were the work of you and of Mr. Denman, and which work, if it had not been instantly put a stop to, would have sent the Queen from the country, and made her the everlasting scorn of the world. I was, therefore, not confident in my expectations, especially when I saw you lingering at two hundred miles distance from your Royal Client, and your colleague at half the distance in another direction. This seemed very unaccountable, while there were fifty or sixty witnesses to be examined, and while there were so many

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other things that would have kept a zealous advocate at his post! I am not to be told of indisposition. Indisposition, whether from gout or pains in the chest, may serve the turn of tricky patriots, who wish to skulk out of acting up to their professions; but if an advocate be indisposed, it is his duty to resign; and not to retain his post without giving up the whole of his time and talents to the performance of its duties; especially in a case like the present, where all the best feelings of the heart ought to have co-operated with all the powers of the mind. Instead of making a flashy speech at Cheltenham, Mr. Denman ought to have been pinned down to some spot, where he could have heard from her Majesty every hour, if ne cessary. The generous enthusiasm with which he was received at Cheltenham ought to have inspired him with a desire to imitate it. It was, rightly interpreted, the strongest admonition for him to return instantly to his all-important duties in London. You, as we shall by and by see, give a lively, a most animated, and almost a terrific picture of the duties of an advocate. You represent that those duties may possibly include the sacrificing even of himself! You and your colleague appear, however, not to have been very strongly impressed with a sense of those duties, when indisposition,

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which may mean a little failure at large and before the whole of appetite as well as a galloping world, a full and powerful stateconsumption; when indisposi- ment of the Queen's just grounds tion, not sufficiently severe to of complaint; of all her sufferprevent you both from travelling ings; of all her agonising torwith great speed, over a great ments; of all the injuries and extent of country; when such insults wantonly inflicted upon indisposition could keep you her, and the bare recital of from the scene of action, till which, without any of your within eight and forty hours of bombastical and hyperbolical the moment when all the tre-decorations, is enough to chill mendous powers of the truly the blood, to make the hair terrible enemies of your client move on the head, and to fill were again to be arrayed against the breast with an indescribable her; when such indisposition mixture of hope and despair, of could produce such effects, it is pity and indignation. You talk, pretty clear, I think, that you in the course of your speech, of must both of you have lost sight perjured witnesses brought aof those all-powerful duties, of gainst your client. You talk which we shall by and by find incidentally about a conspiracy; you giving so ranting a descrip- and did you want the judgment tion. to perceive that it was necessary to pave the way to these de

On these grounds I had formed an opinion not at all favourable velopements and conclusions? to exertions, from which so Did you want the judgment to much was generally expected; perceive that these discoveries an expectation founded on the of perjuries and conspiracies bold and resolute tone which must have little weight, unless you took, upon some occasions, traced back to, and connected towards the close of the case of with, a natural and efficient the Queen's enemies; but which cause? No; you did not want expectation ought to have been judgment to perceive this; but greatly damped, by the very you wanted the will, boldly to undecided, and, indeed, the go into the detail, by which very equivocal part which you that cause would have been acted on the last day of the sit-made evident to all eyes, and ting, at the time when the ad- by which your defence would journment took place. have formed a complete whole, I am not about to enter into implanting perfect conviction in an examination of your mode of every impartial mind. All that attacking the evidence of the was material to your client's enemy. That was a matter case you thus omitted; and, inready cut and dry, prepared by stead of it, made the greater men not afflicted by indisposi- part of your exordium to contion at so critical a moment. sist of a fulsome and nauseous What I have to find fault with eulogium on those who were is your neglect to lay before sitting as the Judges of your your hearers, before the nation | Royal Mistress, and thereby de

priving her, by possibility at" ing over all that had elapsed least, as far as you were able to│“ from her arrival until her dedeprive her, of all ground of" parture in 1814; and he recomplaint as to any judgmen"joiced that the most faithful that they might pass upon her." discharge of his duty permitted Carrying in our minds these" him to take this course." But preliminary observations, let us" he could not do this without - now come to a somewhat closer" examination of your speech. You" set out with disclaiming, for the present at least, all intention to go into recriminatory matter. Your words, as given in the report, were as follow:

pausing for a moment to vindicate himself against an imputation to which he might not unnaturally be exposed in "consequence of the course "which he pursued, and to as"sure their lordships that the "In this situation, with all" cause of the Queen, as it ap"the time which their lordships" peared in evidence, did not "had afforded him for reflection, require recrimination at pre"it was difficult for him to com"sent. The evidence against

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pose his mind to the proper "her Majesty, he felt, did not "discharge of his professional" now call upon him to utier duty; for he was still weighed one whisper against the con "down with the sense of the" duct of her illustrious consort, "heavy responsibility of the task" and he solemnly assured their "he had undertaken. He must lordships that but for that con"also observe, that it was no "viction his lips would not at "light addition to the anxiety" that time be closed. In this "of this feeling to foresee" discretionary exercise of his that, before these proceedings" duty, in postponing the case closed, it might be his un- which he possessed, their lordexampled lot to act in a way ships must know that he was which might appear 66 inconwaving a right which be "sistent with the duty of a good" longed to him, and abstaining subject to state what might "from the use of materials which "make some call in question his" were unquestionably his own. loyalty, though that was not" If, however, he should herewhat he anticipated from their" after think it advisable to exfordships. He would now re- “ercise this right-if he should "mind their lordships that his think it necessary to avail him"illustrious client, then Caroline self of means which he at pre"of Brunswick, arrived in this" sent declined using-let it not country in the year 1793; she" be vainly supposed that be, or was the niece of the Sovereign, "and the intended consort of the" the profession, would besitate heir-apparent, and was herself "to resort to such a course, "not far removed from the suc- "and fearlessly perform his duty. "cession to the crown. But he "now went back to that period

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even the youngest member in

He had before stated to their lordships-but surely of that it

solely for the purpose of pass-" was scarcely necessary to re

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But, after the prosecutor has been heard, and when the prosecuted comes to her defence,

mind them-that an advocate, person is threatened with a pro"in the discharge of his duty, secution, when such person, be"knows but one person in all the fore the prosecutor has been "world, and that person is his heard, begins to accuse the ac"client. To save that client by cuser of crimes, instead of de"all means and expedients, and fending himself, or denying the "at all hazards and costs to charge; when, in short, an "other persons, and, among accused party, does what you, "them, to himself, is his first in the character of her Majes and only duty; and in per- ty's Attorney-General, and, as I forming this duty he must not am pretty sure, without her Maregard the alarm, the tor-jesty's consent, or knowledge, "ments, the destruction, which did, in the House of Commons, "be may bring upon others. on the memorable seventh of "Separating the duty of a pa- June last, when an accused party tript from that of an advocate, thus acts, it is properly called *he must go on reckless of con- recrimination, and recrimination "sequences, though it should be too of a very suspicious cha "his unhappy fate to involve racter. "his country in confusion. He felt, however, that, were he now to enter on the branch of his case to which he had al-is she not to state all the facts **luded, he should seem to quit the necessary to show what the cha higher ground of innocence on racter, what the conduct, of the "which he was proud to stand. prosecutor has been; and, this He would seem to seek to for the obvious purpose of showjustify, not to resist the ing the nature and strength of "charges, and plead not guilty his motives to the prosecution, "-to acknowledge and exte- and also of showing what he "nuate offences, levities, and would be likely to do, to what "indiscretions, the very least of lengths he would be likely to which he came there to deny.' go, what means he would be Now, Sir, your principal rea- likely to employ, in order to ef son, or, at least, the only plau- fect the destruction of the party sible reason, which you here prosecuted? This is not recrigive for your non-recrimina-|mination: this is defence and tion, is this, that by resorting to this you know as well as ; for recrimination you might seem what is so common as to ask a to quit the higher ground of in- prosecutor upon cross-examinanocence. On this I have first to tion, whether he has not had a observe, that it was an instance quarrel with the accused? And of bad taste, as well as a want is it not notorious, is it not inof justice to your case, to make sulting the understandings of use of the word recrimination my readers to assert, that, it is at all. There was no recrimi never neglected to endeavour to nation needed. When a person shew malice in the prosecutor is accused of a crime, when alto deduce that malice from fore

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